The number of investigations into suspected Nazi war crimes rose considerably last year, states the Simon Wiesenthal Center. According to the organization’s latest report, during the period from April 2009 to March 2010 there were 852 inquiries made worldwide. This is a serious rise in comparison to 706 investigations for the same period in 2008/2009.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is a global Jewish human rights organization that fights anti-Semitism, hatred and terrorism around the planet and also “teaches the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations”. Having worldwide support, it is accredited as an NGO by the most influential international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and UNESCO.

The center was named after Simon Wiesenthal – a famous freelance Nazi hunter, who, being a survivor of the death camps, dedicated his life to hunting down former Nazis.

The author of SWC’s annual report is Efraim Zuroff – head of the organization’s Jerusalem branch whose main aim is investigation of suspected World War II Nazi criminals. Commenting last year’s increase in investigation activities, Mr. Zuroff said that ”it's clear that we're reaching the end of the period in which this work will be possible. This has motivated countries with the political will to make an effort to prosecute former Nazis. There's now a greater sensitivity to Holocaust crimes and more knowledge of them.”

This time SWC also awarded Germany an A-grade for its efforts in prosecuting Nazi war criminals. This was the first time that the top grade has been received by any other country except the United States. The increase in Germany’s cases against Nazis is truly impressive – from 27 in 2008/09 to 177 in 2009/10. According to Efraim Zuroff, the main reason for such a dramatic increase is the fact ”that Germany in particular has changed its prosecution policy", allowing more suspects – including those who hadn’t been officer class of those of non-German origin - to be prosecuted. "While there are still some problems in Germany, we have to give it the highest grade because of the progress it has made," said Zuroff, "We wanted to indicate our satisfaction with this."

The other reason for Germany receiving the highest grade by instead of USA, may be last year’s scandal over the disclosure of the CIA classified report. The document lists both the successes and failures of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created to find and deport Nazis. The report that the Justice Department had tried to keep secret for years, provided evidence of the US government collaboration with Nazi criminals in the post-war period. According to the report, CIA officials provided a safe haven for a number of Nazis, including Otto Von Bolschwing – a close associate to Adolf Eichmann, who had been involved in the plan “to purge Germany of the Jews”. Some analysts claim that Eichman himself had been protected by CIA for years, which didn’t stop Mossad from capturing him in Argentina and bringing him to Israel for trial and execution.

The Justice Department has refused to make the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it had to present a considerably edited version to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but the complete version was soon obtained by New York Times.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also published an annually updated list of the top 10 most wanted Nazi criminals. In the current list the top position belongs to Sandor Kepiro, accused of organizing the mass murder of more than 1,250 civilians at Novy Sad, Serbia in 1942. Kepiro was convicted in Hungary in 1944, but never faced punishment. Hungary started a new criminal investigation against him more than three years ago. The previous number one – John Demjanjuk, is currently on trial in Germany.

The head of SWC’s Jerusalem branch Efraim Zuroff, who has played an important role in prosecuting these and many other war criminals, expressed his content with the increase in the investigation process. Commenting the fact that he reconsidered his recent decision to cease his activities, Mr. Zuroff stated: "Given the positive developments in Germany it would be silly to end my work now".

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